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Posted by
twsavage
on 2012-10-03

PUBLIC:

I'm posting this for my fellow CEO Eric Filseth of Ciranova. His company and mine (IPextreme) were both Alloy portfolio companies and Dan Rubin was on my board as well and I can concur on much of Eric's comments.

Warren Savage
IPextreme Inc.

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At Ciranova Inc we had an extremely good experience with Alloy Ventures and Dan Rubin. They were an early investor, and over several years until our exit (acquired in July 2012 by Synopsys Inc) Alloy helped us with much more than capital. They are smart people with deep real-world operating experience and a pragmatic, long term perspective. They were neither skittish in difficult times, nor irrationally exuberant in boom times.

I want to comment specifically on their experience, their integrity, and their leadership with the other investors we had.

You expect VC’s to be experts on startup finance, and Dan and the Alloy CFO, Tony Di Bona, are. But Dan’s operating experience was even more helpful; time and again he gave us smart ideas and astute advice on matters unrelated to financing, such as complicated major-customer interactions, a few tricky HR issues, and a variety of strategic choices. A great “been-there” person to help you think through a problem.

My experience with Alloy is they are very high-integrity people working in a sometimes harsh industry. Anybody who’s been through this stuff understands that all kinds of things happen during financing activities and exits, and there are inherent conflicts of interest which can’t be completely avoided. Throughout the time, Alloy consistently looked out for the best interests of the group, including the employees; and the needs of building the company. Very, very solid people, and much appreciated.

Finally, we had several investors, both professional VC’s and strategics, some of whom were also competitors. It was a good board, but this dynamic made for interesting board meetings, especially during the early days of the downturn in 2009, when it looked like the entire semiconductor industry might even implode. Dan was the guy who consistently led the other investors to consensus on sound decisions, even when there were tricky shoals and conflicts to be navigated. Just a really good, fully-engaged person to have on your board. (Our attorney Bob Latta also extremely effective for this.)

Overall I can’t say enough good things about our experience with Alloy Ventures. I’d recommend them without reservation to any entrepreneur looking for capital, and more. If anyone wants to discuss in more detail I’d be more than happy to do so; you can reach me at efilseth@gmail.com.

Posted by
twsavage
on 2011-11-18

PUBLIC:

Alloy led our Series A and Dan Rubin was a fantastic investor and board member that was able to go deep into the business and provide real guidance and advice that was very helpful as a sounding board but didn't try to get in the way of day-day business. As a firm, Alloy bent over backwards to help us through the hard times and were our greatest cheerleader when things went well. They seem to really understand that there is no such thing as instant gratification in this business and are in it for the long haul if that's what it takes. I've love to work with them again someday.

Posted by
sfossel
on 2010-11-04

PUBLIC:

I pitched Scott Johnston and Manu Lakkur and found both to be highly capable, personable, and constructive. Only first meeting I've ever had that lasted an hour and included them breaking out the whiteboard to help me make my company better and get to a point of funding with them. While I admittedly had a warm intro, these guys are definitely a class act and I would go to them without reservation.

Posted by
pwalborsky
on 2009-03-17

PUBLIC:

Ammar has been instrumental in helping GigaOM think through different revenue and economic models as the digital media landscape changes. Ammar understands our industry, is extremely well connected and has been a very strategic partner to us. He is willing to roll-up his sleeves and work with the executive team.

Posted by
rockdawg
on 2008-01-29

PUBLIC:

We were provided a warm introduction to Alloy, unfortunately our point person was David Ezequelle. David preferred to talk about himself and ended with "do this, do that, do this and then we can talk". The problem is we needed help to do this that and the other, which is why we went to see him in the first place. Why the heck would we go back to Alloy once we did everything.

Posted by
anncam12
on 2008-01-28

PUBLIC:

I would agree with many of the comments posted on this firm. They are not looking for anything new, and aren't impressed with anything that isn't new. Not much insight provided, even with respect to businesses which are clearly in their portfolio.

Posted by
Muckraker
on 2008-01-22

PUBLIC:

Doug Kelly is disruptive as a board member in a clever and devious kind of way. He has no clout and very little respect amongst his own partners, so he cannot back up his own word when it has to do with making an important comittment to a company that Alloy has an investment in. Without going into great detail, he has some real ethical issues that would cause me to avoid him and Alloy like the plague. Old school arrogance rules the day in this fund. AVOID.

Hey, it's not my money--or theirs--so it's easy for me to say they appear a bit too careful. But they do. Tempting to say they are past their prime, but I think they are doing the same thing they did at Asset Management...their previous firm. They are looking to create new subsidiaries of big companies....not new big companies. It's a subtle difference, but you see it all around them. After X years, it's time to bring in professional management....even if there is nothing to professionally manage. At month 1, the company is thinking too big...and needs to prove out its potential with only 1/2 of what it wanted. As a result, everything falls short. Expectations are too low in the beginning and too high near the end. As a result, Alloy and the startup management team never quite get it right because they are never aligned....and neither side ever figures out why.

To me it seems as if they are focusing too much on eliminating any possible risk rather than to balance the associated risk against the market opportunity. After all it is venture capital we are talking about here, not a bank loan. We had to spend too much time taking out any risk and we therefore decided that the time spent with them was not worth it.

I also consider them to be very cheap when it comes to the size of the investment. You just get the feeling that whatever investment sum you bring up they will divide it by two without actually assessing whether the requested investment is adequate or not.

Posted by
anonymous
on 2007-05-09

PUBLIC:

Met this guy at a conference a few years ago. He just walked over to our booth and basically told us how stupid we were. I mean, seriously, they told us we were idiots before he even asked a single question.

Posted by
Maverick
on 2007-03-19

PUBLIC:

Fairly bright people, but without much first-hand business experience. Don't have the stomach for making tough decisions and tend to panic easily. Very political organization with a culture of bullying both smaller investors and founders.